Bernstein-Sato theory for singular rings in positive characteristic

Abstract

The Bernstein-Sato polynomial is an important invariant of an element or an ideal in a polynomial ring or power series ring of characteristic zero, with interesting connections to various algebraic and topological aspects of the singularities of the vanishing locus. Work of Mustaţă, later extended by Bitoun and the third author, provides an analogous Bernstein-Sato theory for regular rings of positive characteristic. In this paper, we extend this theory to singular ambient rings in positive characteristic. We establish finiteness and rationality results for Bernstein-Sato roots for large classes of singular rings, and relate these roots to other classes of numerical invariants defined via the Frobenius map. We also obtain a number of new results and simplified arguments in the regular case.